


All Things Are On Fire

by Helendmeyourears



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rite of Tranquility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3494957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helendmeyourears/pseuds/Helendmeyourears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Solas finds no solace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Things Are On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> My first Dragon Age fic and I WOULD write about angsty crap like this, wouldn't I? Okay, so I didn't know how to tag this properly, but there is sort of torture? Not in the physical sense. More like a mental, You Get No Privacy In Prison kind of way, though it doesn't go too far into detail. It made me a smidge uncomfortable writing it and thinking about its implications, so I thought it worth mentioning. Also, there's no violence but there is some description of blood. 
> 
> If you take the time to let me know if you liked this or not, whether that's through a kudos or a comment, know that I will probably name my firstborn after you. The grumpy one. (Sorry, I had to).

_"'On Margate Sands._

_I can connect_

_Nothing with nothing._

_The broken fingernails of dirty hands._

_My people humble people who expect_

_Nothing.'_

_la la_

_To Carthage then I came_

_Burning burning burning burning..."_

-T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

 

"Shit," Varric breathed, when Lavellan turned to face him.

Satisfaction seemed too strong a word for what she felt when he entered the courtyard that housed her “quarters,” but it was something very near to that. Her living situation had not improved much since she had been made tranquil, and if Varric was there, the Inquisition must have finally made their move to rescue her.

They would not look at her the same way- she had suspected as much long before she noted how Varric could no longer look directly at her, as if the sun branded on her forehead was as blinding as the real one.

But her quarters for the moment were no more than a cage plopped in the middle of the courtyard, just tall enough for her to stand and wide enough that she could take only five small paces in any given direction, which she had done occasionally  in an attempt to keep from succumbing to hypothermia in the night. It was designed to be as open as possible, to offer her little privacy or reprieve from the many people who liked to taunt her, rattle her cage, and even throw things at her. 

She didn’t care for it. Tranquil or no, she was sure that at the very least she would be offered a better living situation by the Inquisition.

Though if Varric was there, that would also mean that not far behind would be- 

Yes, there he was. Solas barreled through the courtyard’s entrance as if Lavellan had summoned him with her thoughts. She almost wished he hadn’t. She did not remember love, or the reasons why she’d felt it for him, but she bore him no ill will. She knew he would not accept her condition as easily as she had.

_“Vhenan!”_ Solas cried, as his searching gaze fell on her. He rushed to her side as quickly as he could.

He was covered in blood, and judging from the jagged tears in his clothes and the way he favored his right leg, at least some of it was his own. Beneath the blood, both the fabric of his shirt and the skin of his arms were dappled with splotches of dried paint- a motley of green, gold, and blue.

He looked to her like a painting of an ancient being come to life. Or like a man who hadn’t thought to change out of his worn painting clothes before dashing off to the rescue.   

 As he approached, he got his first clear look at her and went still. His face then shifted in curious ways- from furious determination, to a blank sort of incomprehension, and finally to a pure, primal sort of fear that made his legs fail out from under him.

He fell to his knees before her and bowed his head, his shoulders shaking, trembling as if he carried a heavy burden upon them.

“No,” she could hear him whisper his breath, like a prayer. “It can’t be. Not this. Please, anything but this.”

Lavellan was so focused on him that she did not see Cole arrive, nor hear him pick the lock on her cage. Strangely, Cole’s hand on her arm pulling her attention away from Solas seemed to have the same effect as if she had surfaced from a pool of murky water and found her sight and hearing cleared.

***

The journey back to Skyhold was a long one, mostly silent but for the sounds of the forest, of birds and things that moved between the trees until their golden autumn leaves fluttered to the ground like showers of falling stars.  

 “Kid,” Varric murmured, during one of their rest stops. “Was she in any pain?”

His voice was rough, low. Lavellan wasn’t mean to hear, but she did anyway, and she could tell by the way Solas’s posture hunched and his hands tightened around his staff that he did, too.

She made the logical decision.

“No,” she said, loud enough for them all to hear.

Varric and Cole looked at her, surprised. Solas did not. Could not.

Varric turned back to Cole.

“Is that true?”

Cole lowered his head, his eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his too-big hat.

“Fear like a black wave, and I’m drowning in it, choking. _No, remember._ Quiet moments in the library, the steady thrum of his chest under my ear, the bridge of his nose brushing along mine, the smell of paint on my tongue. The lyrium burns me, _is_ me, scorching from the inside out, melting the color from my memories, the feelings, all of it bleeding out of me, bleeding. I’m sorry, Solas, but oh, Creators, please just let them kill me. I want to die _I want to die I want-_ nothing.”

The last word was a whisper, a sigh of the wind.

 A sharp _crack_ startled them all. Solas’s white-knuckled grip on his staff had broken it. He opened his hands slowly, let the broken pieces of the staff fall to the floor. His hands sat limply on his thighs, and he stared at them, at the blood staining them.

Abruptly, he stood and stalked away towards the forest.  

“I didn’t think the tranquil could lie. Why did you?” Varric asked Lavellan.

Her blank eyes followed Solas’s retreating figure.

“It would’ve been kinder,” she said. “In the long run.”


End file.
